Further details about the partnership and scheduling will be released on Wednesday, according to NASA

After much success with SpaceX, NASA has decided to bring another commercial space company onboard -- but this time, it's for an International Space Station (ISS) remodel.

NASA has awarded commercial space company Bigelow Aerospace a total of $17.8 million to create an expandable module for the ISS.

Bigelow Aerospace, which was founded in 1998, has been building expandable spacecraft with the intention of using them on missions. In 2006 and 2007, the company successfully launched its prototypes into orbit.

Now, NASA wants Bigelow Aerospace to use its expandable modules to develop a bigger space station.

Further details about the partnership and scheduling will be released on Wednesday, according to NASA.

“This partnership agreement for the use of expandable habitats represents a step forward in cutting-edge technology that can allow humans to thrive in space safely and affordably, and heralds important progress in U.S. commercial space innovation,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver.

NASA took a chance with private, California-based space company SpaceX when the government agency retired its space shuttle fleet throughout 2011. SpaceX stepped up in order to provide American astronauts a way to the ISS without hitching an expensive ride on a Russian Soyuz rocket. In 2012, SpaceX's Dragon made an initial successful cargo trip to the ISS in May and its first official cargo trip later in October.

It is rumored that SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace will make a trip together in 2015.

Did some Googling and found the companies website. Here's the text from their main page. My apologies for not checking this first as I was completely wrong in my first post.

quote: The concept of utilizing expandable, or, as referred to in the past, ‘inflatable’ spacecraft and space systems is not a new idea. The history of inflatable space systems goes back to the very beginning of America’s space program. As a matter of fact, the inflatable Echo 1 and Echo 2, the world’s first passive communications satellites, were one of the inaugural projects taken on in 1958 by a new federal agency called NASA. Boasting a diameter close to the height of a 10-story building, the Echo satellites have been described as “perhaps the most beautiful object[s] ever to be put into space.” The challenge that these first NASA engineers faced was how to place such a large structure into the relatively tiny fairing of a Thor-Delta rocket. The ultimate solution was to use an inflatable system, which led to the development of the Echo 1, 1A, and 2, and a brand new substance that the satellite was made out of called ‘Mylar’.

I remember the space hotel concept from a few years ago and when they sent up there first inflatable pods. I'm just curious about how sturdy they are, or how they have addressed the threat of space debris

...though I'd think they'd also make an attempt to cover the modules with some degree of Lunar regolith, for additional protection from meteorites, solar and galactic cosmic radiation and day/night temperature extremes.

If there are caves and stable, uncollapsed lava tubes (we know the Moon has lava tubes that have collapsed) that can be accessed without much trouble, placing modules like these within them could be even better.